“As he turned to flee, the whistling of valves emitted by the floating machine broke to a melody of long bass notes…”

After exploring Google AdWords more extensively in the last few weeks, I’ve realized that you have to be quite careful about choosing keywords which match the content of the website being advertised.

In my first advertising experiments, I tried to generate interest in viewers by employing curious phrases (nothing ever as brilliant as platypus dirigible, though!). These first ads attracted clicks, but since the visitors weren’t looking for Castle Mountain or Lighthouse + Airship when they googled for information about cat health, none of them came back after the initial visit.

In retrospect, that is an obvious outcome. However, my focus at the time was to entice anyone to visit the website, rather than enticing people who love daily sketches of cats and adventure to visit the website. Recent efforts were more finely tuned, but writing copy and choosing keywords that reach just the right people is a difficult, subtle thing — an art in its own right and one that demands a lot of attention.

I wonder who usually handles such things for artists? Art promoters? Artist’s agents? There must be someone out there.

“The light was blinding. There was a great whistle and chatter — as though a hundred steam engines were running fast and close — and the floor seemed to tremble beneath his feet.”

Update: It just struck me that today’s dramatic sketch unintentionally mirrors religious imagery depicting a divine being’s interaction with — or focus on — earth-bound mortals. (In the west, at least, there’s a near-reflexive tendency to read the top of a vertically-oriented image as “up” or “sky” and the bottom as “down” or “ground” — I imagine the same holds true wherever gravity is practiced).

(It’s not an entirely inappropriate association in this case. If you’re a child obsessed with engineering and machinery and you encounter an ancient entity exhibiting some sign of these practices, how else would a first encounter appear?)

(Frankly, I am a little surprised the kid is still waiting amid all the pipes and strange machinery. Calliope isn’t exactly known for scouting things out and coming back… at least, not right away. For all he knows, she is enjoying a delicious tuna sandwich back at the homestead.)

My most recent audiobook — Spycraft — was written by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton. From what I gather, the book concerns itself with the history of the most interesting aspect of the CIA — the gadgets — and their impact on The New Great Game. Thus far, it’s interesting, but quite dry.

After falling asleep with the audio running last night, I dreamed of making a dead drop somewhere in Russia with KGB agents right on my trail. They caught me, of course. They had dogs. Thankfully, I woke before they left me to the tender mercies of Lubyanka.